Race is a four-letter word

Summary: "Speaking biologically, "race" is a spectral concept. Black, brown, red, white, and yellow, considered purely as skin colours, merit no more significance than a tattoo. The "skin your're in" is about as meaningful as ectoplasm. Scientists remind us that not only are we all essentially the same, but we all have the same genetic ancestor. Eve was a black, African woman. Nevertheless, history and politics, sociology and economics, transform skin colour - "race" - into either a golden sheathe or a leaden prison of shame. In Race Is a Four-Letter Word, director Sobaz Benjamin highlights Canadian contradictions and conflicts around race. Heroically, he exposes himself, too: a black man who grew up hating himself, trying to bleach his skin with chemicals, and then struggling to appreciate the meaning of his culture and heritage as an "Afro-Saxon" Briton, then Grenadian and now Haligonian-Nova Scotian-Canadian. We also met a white man who is culturally and psychologically black; of a black woman who wants to be considered iconically Canadian; of another black woman who retreats to England rather than continue to face Canada's racial cold war. In the end, Race Is a Four-Letter Word teaches us that the soul has no colour. Yet, we also learn that race is a marathon we are all forced to run."--Container.

Other Formats and Editions